Yu Darvish's specialized skill

Kevin Jairaj/US PresswireIn addition to great raw stuff, Yu Darvish has a feel for his pitches that sets him apart.

There was a moment during Yu Darvish's start against the New York Yankees on Tuesday when Texas Rangers catcher Mike Napoli dropped into a squat to call a pitch and made an unusual sign -- sort of an upside-down L, aimed in the direction of the right-handed batter.

Ken Singleton, broadcasting the game on YES, noted that he had never seen a sign like this before. This is what a catcher must do when his pitcher has more than three or four or five pitches -- invent signals beyond the standard stuff.

It's one thing to be able to throw a lot of pitches, but it's a different kind of challenge entirely to maintain command of such a wide array. There are only so many bullets for a pitcher between starts, only so many times they can throw a baseball, and this is why a lot of pitchers will streamline their repertoire.

While throwing 35 to 50 pitches in their bullpen session, and while playing catch daily with their catching partner, they'll devote a certain percentage of their throws to fastballs, some to their breaking balls, some to their changeups -- depending on what pitch needs the most work, the most maintenance. Derek Holland is Darvish's catching partner, and he says the right-hander can somehow maintain command of all of his different pitches with minimal practice.

He throws a couple of different fastballs, two different speeds of curveballs (a hard curve and a big looping curveball), a slider, a cutter, a splitter. This means that he's probably throwing one or two of his pitches only four or five times a week and keeping them game-ready.

This is an incredible, difference-making skill, reflecting a gifted feel for how to make a baseball move. Imagine a quarterback who could master an entire offense while practicing particular plays only once or twice a season.

A) Darvish threw 82 of 119 pitches (68.9 percent) for strikes, well above his 56.8 percent average entering the night.

B) He started 21 of 33 hitters (63.6 percent) with a first-pitch strike. In his first three starts, he threw a first-pitch strike to less than 48 percent of all hitters.

C) Thirteen of the 21 balls in play (61.9 percent) against Darvish were hit on the ground, compared with 42.1 percent in his first three starts. Twenty-two of Darvish's 25 outs were either grounders or strikeouts.

D) Lefties entered Tuesday hitting .313 against Darvish; the six Yankees lefties in the lineup Tuesday were 4-for-21 with eight strikeouts against Darvish.

E) Yankees lefties were 0-for-5 with four strikeouts in at-bats ending with Darvish's curveball.

F) Yankees hitters were 1-for-12 with five strikeouts with men on base.

G) The Yankees chased 25 Darvish pitches out of the strike zone; opponents had chased an average of 12 in Darvish's first three starts.

Darvish is the second starting pitcher in Rangers history with 10 strikeouts and 0 ER against the Yankees. Joe Coleman struck out 11 in nine scoreless innings in 1969.

From Elias: Since divisional play began in 1969, only two other pitchers besides Darvish have hurled at least eight shutout innings with 10 or more strikeouts in their first career start against the Yankees: Baltimore's Bob Milacki on Sept. 28, 1988, and Cleveland's Bartolo Colon on Sept. 21, 1998.

Notables

• Dylan Bundy was unhittable, again, as Jon Meoli writes. The Orioles prospect is 13 innings into his professional career and still hasn't allowed a hit.

• David Ortiz has been killing the ball, and he wrecked the Minnesota Twins with another opposite-field double and a monster home run. Ortiz has been hammering hits to left field -- far more than last year.

From Justin Havens of ESPN Stats & Info, where Ortiz has been getting his hits:

4. From Elias:Chipper Jones hit his fifth career HR on his birthday, tied for the most among active players with Alex Rodriguez and Todd Helton. Other career numbers on Jones' birthday: .429 batting average, 11 RBIs, eight strikeouts. Jones also joins Tony Phillips, Wade Boggs, Joe Morgan (hit two) and Bob Thurman as players who homered on their 40th birthdays. Jim Thome and Darrell Evans hold the MLB record, homering on their 41st birthdays.

April swoons

The longest April losing streaks in MLB history (courtesy of Elias).

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ABOUT THIS BLOG

Buster Olney

Buster Olney is a senior writer at ESPN The Magazine. He began covering baseball in 1989, as the Nashville Banner's beat reporter assigned to the Triple-A Nashville Sounds. Later, he covered the San Diego Padres (1993-94), the Baltimore Orioles ('95-96), the New York Mets ('97) and the Yankees ('98-2001). Olney joined ESPN The Magazine in 2003, after six years at The New York Times, and he's the author of two books. "The Last Night of the Yankee Dynasty," is a Times best-seller, and "How Lucky You Can Be", about basketball coaching legend Don Meyer, was released in 2011.

He grew up in central Vermont collecting baseball cards and listening to Red Sox, Expos, Phillies and Pirates radio broadcasts, and was a rabid fan of the Los Angeles Dodgers. He graduated from Vanderbilt University the same year as hoops legend Will Perdue, and ranks among the all-time leading scorers in pickup basketball at Memorial Gym. He claims to have witnessed the Commodores' winning football season in 1982 (although anthropologists have not yet confirmed this).